Wednesday, November 2, 2011

He Didn't Even Mention the Earthquake--It Couldn't Have Been Too Bad!

Hello United States!

Today is day 50 of my mission!! Wow!! Only 7584373793893932.4 days left! Actually, I'm not counting down. But I am counting up. Day 50. Woo! I got stuck with the earliest e-mail time again. This is slightly torturous, except for the fact that I look forward to e-mailing you guys all week long! I've just given up all hope of ever feeling well rested for the next two years of my life.

Anywho, interesting week. Last Wednesday after I e-mailed you we got to leave and go out on a tour of Lima for the day! It was exactly what I needed. So fun! It was such a nice sunny day too which is rare! The bus drive alone was fun just because we got to see a lot of the city. Lima is gigantic. The first thing we did was we went on a tour of some cathedral or something. It was sort of cool. Kind of boring though. Actually super boring. Until we went into the catacombs that were full of bones and skulls and I felt like I was in Resident Evil or something. To my disappointment not a single zombie tried to attack us. That would have made my day! But that part was really cool. We weren't allowed to take pictures though, and I really wanted to. So many dead body parts scattered all over the place. lolz

After that we went to a little market area that was kind of fun. I didn't buy anything though. I'm waiting 'til I get to Chiclayo, but it was fun. Then President Cavanaugh treated us all to some freaking delicious churros and then let us go free to explore for a while. We were gonna go to McDonald's but we went to a place called Bemobo's (... really? Bembo's?) instead. It was alright, but it's no McD's. P.S.: It's really hard to find Mountain Dew here. Me and about ten other Elders are all on constant lookout for Dew. Our teachers said it exists here, but apparently it's not very common. No fair! Anyway, that was prob the best day of my mission so far.

I have a new Latin companion now! His name is Elder Gardea and he's from Chihuahua Mexico. He's 19, he's been a member of the church his entire life, he's the first of his siblings to serve a mission, and he's super skinny. Sounds familiar, eh? He's awesome! A little more shy and quiet than Elder Paredes, but he's super cool. I love him! When this new group of Latinos came in I felt so good because I was able to initiate and carry on conversations confortably with all of them. That pretty much blew my mind and made me feel so good because I was sort of feeling like I wasn't learning the language very quickly anymore. Wrong! In three weeks I went from barely being able to speak to people here, to starting conversations with them, and they understand me! All the people here are so nice. I always apologize that I can't speak very well but they're always like ''No! You speak fine! I understand you!'' so that makes me feel really good.

Yesterday I got to meet my mission president, President Risso. We only got to talk to him for about 2.5 seconds, but he seems really awesome! I still don't know if he can speak English...

Hmm, what else... No proselyting last weekend. Don't know if we're going this weekend or not. I never know what's going on here! Nobody does. But in two weeks I'll finally be out there doing missionary work for realz. I can't wait!! I'm tired of teaching fake investigators. I can't wait to go out there and start seeing real progress and start seeing real changes happen in people's lives. It's going to be the coolest thing in the world. Also, I miss going to real church. MTC church is weird because it doesn't really feel like we're at church. I feel like I haven't been to church since Sep 11th when I gave my farewell talk!... and James and Reyn and Connor and Shel were there and it was Aw3x0me City.

There's this video I've watched probably about 20 kajillion times since I've been out on my mission. It's just a short video with clips of things every Latter-day prophet has said from Joseph Smith to Thomas S. Monson. I don't know why, but I really like it a lot. Especially when it get's to my good friend Gordon B. Hinckley. What he says gets to me every time! I don't know why I love it so much. He talks about prayer, and prayer has been something super important to me these past two months or so. Prayer is truly one of the greatest blessings we have. Go watch!:

Talking to our Heavenly Father is such an amazing privilege, and we can do it at any time, and at any place. I pray all the time, and it's so comforting to know that even though I'm a million miles away from all of you, Heavenly Father is still with me wherever I go, and he'll always be there. Getting an answer to one of your prayers is one of the best experiences you can have. I love prayer! And I love my Father in Heaven so much. I'm so thankful for this chance I get to dedicated two years of my life to serving Him.

Well, I don't have much else to say that I can think of at the moment, other than I MISS YOU SO MUCH! I hope Bryn had a super duper birthday. I don't like missing all of these important events! But it's okay, I'll be back someday.

This is super random but I've been meaning to mention it ever since like the first week of my mission. Elder Barton, who was in my district in Provo, said he knows some Hemsley's in Preston Idaho. I told him we're probably related but that I've never met another Hemsley in my entire life. Haha. Do you guys know them?

Alrighty, I'm running out of time. Going to the Temple in like 20 minutes, and then I get a nice p-day. I'm excited!

By the way, if you're mailing me, don't send things to the MTC anymore. They say not to mail us past our three week mark because we might be gone by the time the mail gets here. Start mailing to the mission home in Chiclayo! That's where mail will go for the rest of my mission. Easy! I don't have the address right now, but you do, I hope.

Okay, I love and miss you a ton!! I'm trying hard to be a good example to all of you and to make you proud. I'm trying really hard.

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About Me

My name is Victor Hemsley and I'm a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints serving in the Peru Chiclayo mission. This blog is run by members of my family to keep you up to date on what I'm doing for these next two years.